Strange, but it's an argument that seems strikingly akin to Zelda on the Wii (and the 'cube).

I HATED god of war, but I tried the seocnd one and found that if I gave it a chance, it is a very satifying game.

That said, the story is horrible, the characters unrealistic and utterly static, and Kratos is a myspace page away from being an emo kid.

It is an achievment to get a game not look like ass and to have little to no load times on the ps2, but it is hardly the tour de force people make it out to be. Everything god of war does, Ninja Gaiden did a thousand times better over 2 years ago.

Agreed 100% Marasai. Didn't like the first, I like the second, but the character/story is god aweful.

Also, it will be a cold day in hell before I ever give MTV a chance to deliver a gaming review, good writing or not.

That really was a well written article (well, well written e-mail exchange) and thanks for linking to it. I've tried writing my thoughts on GOW2 several times in this thread, but I keep deleting it and starting over. I think that's a sign to just say "Thanks for the article" and leave it at that.

i have to agree with totilo. only, I didnt like GoW2 at all. I loved the first one, but I played up to the golden fleece and quit this new iteration.

I'm quite torn about God of War II. The first half of the game really did feel quite different from number 1, in terms of gameplay. Riding around on pegasus was awesome, plain and simple. The levels felt much more inspired as well. And I got to fight some new enemies with different attack patterns.

But as the game progressed, I found myself fighting the same boring enemies(from the first game) over and over again. Having already mastered God of War 1 in God mode, playing the same exact enemies on Spartan mode in God of War 2 was much much too easy. So the most vital part of a game, the gameplay, was utterly lacking by the end of the game.

That said, the story, levels, and characters were far superior to GoWI, which made the game feel much more solid.

@ApeofGods:

The worst part is Kratos. i have never played a game where I did not mind dying just becaue I hate the main character so much.

I mean, everyline of dialogue he has is just some growl about how the gods suck and everything is their fault.

Which makes no sense.

He went ou to war for his own personal glory.
He bit off more than he could chew by facing the barbarian hordes.
He swore to ares that he would do whatever he wanted if he let him win.
He killed his family when people kept warning him not to.
He embarked on a quest for vengeance.
He made the same mistakes that Ares made.

Every single thing that happens to Kratos is his own damn fault. and every situation he gets into is a result of his own stupidity.

let me expand. I felt god of war 2 took the same game mechanic as its predecessor, boosted the "WOW" factor to 10 million, and took away all of the things from the first one that made it more than an arcade action fighter to me. namely, great character backstory, and interesting plot. god of war 2 could have hd anyone as the protagonist, it didn't need to be a guy who butchered his family and had their ashes fused into his skin.

@Marasai: so kratos is an american? lol, jk, don't flame

"Sometimes a good game is just good, it doesn't have to shake the bounds of its genre or reinvent something."

Exactly. A game like God of War, with that level of pure quality and cohesion, comes along very rarely. When it comes out, we shouldn't pretend it's "just okay." Exact Animal Crossing or Viva Pinata for being innovative all you want, but God of War -- in all its derivativeness -- is still in another ballpark as game experiences go.

Does N'gai Croal work for Sony? I seem to only hear his name attached to articles related to them. He seems to kiss their ass a lot.... Just sayin'.

I think God of War 2 is a textbook example of the risks developers take in placing an emphasis on a forceful, directed narrative over user control and accomplishment; when I'm playing the game, I don't feel like I have the agency to move the story forward. The story moves forward pulling me along, while I grind through enemies and bosses on hard. There's a lot of deus ex machina going on in the game (and I don't mean that in a punny way), so much so that it doesn't feel like I'm discovering anything. If I need something, I know that eventually it'll sort of fall on my head while I hope that it's useful in more than one situation. It's a spectacle to be sure, and I think that while Croal is right that self referentialism is acceptable to a degree (and I don't find the references to the previous game in gameplay or story a problem), but he's also ignoring that God of War 1 and 2 rely heavily on the crutch of our western awareness of Greek mythology. In this way, the backstory we are offered (or need, really), is limited, and instead the designers focus on playing with those expectations, visually and characterization wise. Either way, it feels like because they have that crutch from our familiarity with both mythology and the previous game, the narrative in this game is sort of lazy, and feels forced. It is a technical achievement, and the presentation is amazing, but in the realm of gameplay and control (both in a literal and figurative sense), I feel dissatisfied.

http://eat-sleep-game.com/news

"Sometimes a good game is just good, it doesn't have to shake the bounds of its genre or reinvent something."

'Good' is subjective. Look at how many people hate Halo. You can't simply say a game is "just good." There has to be a reason.

Yeah I know Marsai, the character is one dimentional, stupid, and a dick to everything and everyone.

Which is funny sometimes, but all he does is yell at everything(I don't think he speaks a single word of dialog without yelling) then trys to kill him.

***Possible spoilers a head...****

The sequals plot line is even worse.

Alright you "got revenge" when in reality you were just power hungry and wanted to be a god.

So now you're a god and that isn't good enough so you have to be a dick to all the other gods.

Then someone you hate offers you help and all you do is yell at them.

The help being such an obvious trap that I didn't even want to use the sword. Not only that, you were a god, it didn't look like he was having all that much trouble defeating the collossus.

So then you fall for the trap and get pissed off? Sorry, but if you're that stupid you don't deserve to be a god, get over it.

It's all kind of funny, but really annoying, it's a shame they couldn't apply the excellent gameplay, art, and inventive creatures to something with a little substance. But I think I said the same with Gears of War, but at least those meat heads were funny enough to laugh at, Kratos is just plain annoying.

"Kratos is a myspace page away from being an emo kid."

That's really funny.

@ApeofGods:

I'm so glad you mentioned gears. people go on about how Marcus fenix is too gruff but at least he jokes around every now and then. The Gears joke and snipe and have personality, Kratos has all of the charm of a white man in a spike lee movie.

And it bugs me that god of War is the only series that can get away with it. Remmeber prince of persia 2? how everyone bitched about the prince becoming dark and generic? No complaints for Kratos.

N'gai's opinion is based on the supposition that games can be evaluated in the same way as music of movies. For me, games are about participation and interaction. As a result, N'Gai's barometer is not as specifically relevent for games analysis as Totilo's (IMO).

Yes, games can be beautiful to look at or the soundtrack can really suck you in, but ultimately it's about how *you* act/react/interact within the space of the game.

Sure, shakin' one's ass has a certain participatory nature...but does the act affect the music with which one is participating? No.

So, I would have to say that if the interaction that you have with the game is stale, then the game itself has gone stale. This is probably one of the major reasons why sequels are churned out with some *bonus feature* that attempts to make the interaction in the game more keen, crisp, and engaging. Sometimes it works, sometimes not but without them and if we just continuously borrow from ourselves we are merely walking the same steps over and over.

Of course, for many...that is exactly what they want: more of the same.

To me though it's not surprising that someone with a wider breadth of experience with games and interactive media would crave something *more* out of the experience. You lose some of the drama and power of the interaction when you use the same device for a second time (e.g. sacrifice a pleading soldier). (I'm having this issue with 24 this season...seems all like ground we've already covered before...so the drama falls flat.)

And in counterpoint, someone who is used to passively experiencing media would enjoy and crave that intratexuality because the interaction and engagement he/she gets is demonstrated between pieces (games, songs, etc.) and between people while discussing the pieces. Their minds are used to wandering outside the actual piece in order to draw it into context, so the search for the intratexuality is one that engages them.

For me personally, I want *the game* to engage me and not the dialogue the game has with its predecessor or contemporaries. Not that I don't enjoy referential material...but I feel you can only finance those references (which typically cause a disengagement of the user) with moments that truly engage.

All of that said, I hated the demo of GoW and haven't played the sequel so I can't speak specifically about these games.

Would it make me a prick to say that I hate both Totilo and N'gai? Everytime I read an article or peice on their respective blogs, they are SO FULL OF THEMSELVES...

"That's really funny."

...and also a joke that was made by X-play all the way back when the first game was new.

I find it amusing that so many people can like the first game and not the second, or vice-versa. It's virtually the same damn game. The first game had harder puzzles and more annoying platforming sequences, but for the most part, they're extremely similar.

And it's a kick-ass game, IMHO.

@Scazza: No it wouldn't. It would just make you perceptive.

I love this review style it reads more like a book review than a standard game review.

I loved God of War and still love the sequel. The argument of is the game creative enough to push the genre is the wrong road to go down. The question you should ask is: "Does God of War II succeed as a sequel?" The answer is yes. You don't go to see Aliens 2 and expect a brand new movie with no ties to the old.
Sequels are about one thing, more.Why would you expect the same in games? With the exception of the Final Fantasy series all sequels are just expansions of the original. More explosions,more battles,more of what you wanted.

@jackal888:

Aliens took an existing fiction and applied to it a new metaphor and recontextualized it; it took a horror film and made it a war movie. It's exactly the kind of departure that Steven Totillo talks about with games like Paper Mario and Yoshi's Island. That it was fabulously entertaining, well made, and watchable don't change that.

http://eat-sleep-game.com/news

@WizarDru:

Right. And do you know why the games are so similar? Because the first was so well done, that that's what every one wanted. Honestly, I think most of the people saying things like "the story was horrible" or "the character is one dimensional" aren't even talking about the right game. Either that, or they're just plain crazy.

They might as well be saying the voice acting was bad, or the music sucked, because they clearly weren't playing the same games that the rest of the world else has. And if they were, they weren't paying much attention.

I disagree with the "Kratos is an emo LOL" statements. Were he, I'd have hated him just as much as I hate the shitty emo-core cry fest - or whatever they like to call it - that the young'uns are listening to nowadays. As far as I saw it, Kratos was meant to be a badass, irate guy who didn't take shit from anyone, and that's what he was. And unlike emos, he actually gets stuff done. Granted, I did tire a little bit of his over-assertions that he was the God of War at the beginning of the game...

Sounds like some people just need to head downtown and turn their penises (penii?) in.

All of the Ratchet and Clank games have the tiniest evolutionary advancements of their predecessors, but they're all greats. I know we're all in the business of hating on sequels and the "lack of innovation" in gaming these days, but sometimes a sequel without a lot of innovation isn't a bad thing.

GoW II is a great game. It's a more balanced and uniform experience than it's predecessor. I feel the only area it suffered was the puzzles, which I thought were slightly less inventive and satisfying to solve than in GoW I.

You know, the Zelda comparisons bring to mind "Ocarina of Time" and "Majora's Mask" as examples of a game where the sequel put a very fresh spin on everything while maintaining some delightful references to the original. Despite reusing so many elements of the first game, it felt like a completely different experience to me.

I think what it comes down to is that there are true sequels and there are remakes. I haven't played GoW2, so I can't tell which category it falls under.

@vizh:

The thing with Zelda games, though, is that they seem like less of a "sequel" and more of a "re-imagining".

Yeah... and Guitar Hero II sucks because it´s just the same as GH but with a little extras... I thought that GoW2 was a sequel, it´s supposed to be similar. Besides I thought that David Jaffe hated cinemas and wanted to incorporate the story into the gameplay, that´s why Kratos story is told in the moral choices of his quest. The greatest part of it, is that it plays much in the same way as genuine Greek Mythology tale... it´s a tragedy and the only one to blame is himself.

I think that Totilio argument was flawed... but that´s just me.

next i'd like to see them fight over Gears of War. At first i loved it but that died off after a while and i decided that the game did nothing special or great. It was just Manhunt with soldiers. It didn't do anything new. Mostly graphics and tons of gore.

I played the game for an extra long time just to enjoy killing Kratos in all of the various scattered devices.

He's the shittiest character i've seen since DMC's Dante. And when that whiny, mass murdering sociopath, who psychotically blames everybody but himself for his problems, gives that gurgling scream of death... I know an angel has gotten its wings.

@Zombie G. Zomborgo:

Yeah, you clearly have too many of your own problems to have time to comment on the mental state of a video game character.

I was actually not interested in GOW2 at all, since it seemed like more of the same ever since I saw those previews...

Maybe I'll play it sometime soon, maybe I won't...

@Roux:

That's actually pretty much the point.

I know. Some people are just too keen on over-analyzing, I guess... To each their own. The game is already a success (and will most likely sell another few million in coming months), so whether you bitch about it or not doesn't really matter.

Instead, send your mail to Santa Monica, or something...

I might be reiterating a point here, so: Oops? :P

The Game Industry Cannon? Is that somewhere in Redmond, WA?

hmm, i found that to be a really interesting read.. i hadnt thought of how similar the game was (even including an almost duplicate of the threesome sex game near the begginning of original)

there IS a lot of improvements that could be made, and that i will EXPECT to be made on the next version, since it will be a ps3 game.

HOWEVER, gow2 DOES make a lot of very significant changes, all of the moves and specials have changed. theres a significant increase in new enemies and it addresses concerns from the original, such as the few number of boss fights.

the alternate weapons are totally awesome in GOW2, and the environments are very beautiful and new.

the puzzles include new elements such as the ability to freeze time, and theres changes even to the most basic combat, such as the ability to rebound an attack when you block at the EXACT precise moment (which also applies to attacks like the gorgon flash [which is also new])

frankly, i think there is enough new content to keep the same type of gameplay completely fresh, and very rewarding for this sequel.. However, when the series DOES move onto the next generation console, i think WE ALL expect that some of the similarities which we are can accept in this version wont be acceptable.

there will need to be more changes than just graphics, and a few motion controls thrown into the gow-style "press this button to do this insane fight attack"